


Diminuendo

by CrumblingAsh



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Bucky/Steve, Bruce Feels, Dogs, End of the World, First Meetings, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Minor Character Death, Sick Tony, Tony Feels, background clint/natasha - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 07:42:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6186298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrumblingAsh/pseuds/CrumblingAsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When there is just under a week left until the world is set to end, Bruce finds a man sitting on a sidewalk, shivering in the pouring rain.</p><p>And takes him home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diminuendo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CharityLambkin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharityLambkin/gifts).



* * *

 

 

So here was the thing about the end of the world.

They built a damn timer to count down to it.

And not only did the build the damn timer, they stuck it on everything.

_Everything._

There was something just horrifyingly _wrong_ about a set of numbers counting down the minutes until nonexistence sitting in the corner of kids’ cartoon programming.

… Though it did fit quite nicely with the overall fucked-up theme of _Courage the Cowardly Dog_.

From over the sink in the kitchen, Bruce grinned a little as he heard the tv in the living room crackle tellingly.

 _“We interrupt this program to bring you –,”_ a voice started, loud.

“Courage the Cowardly Dog Show!” Bruce chanted along, scooping a hunk of preserved beef out of the can and into the bowl. “Starring Courage! The Cowardly Dog! Abandoned as a pup, he was found by Muriel, who lives in the middle of Nowhere, with her husband, Eustace Bagge!” He waved the scoop. “But creeeeepy stuff happens in Nowhere! It’s up to Courage to save his new home!” Amidst the quietness of cartoon-screaming, there was the sound of the television supposedly turning off, and Bruce dropped the scoop into the sink just in time to whirl around, bowl of beef in hand, to point at the white pitbull sitting sedately at the edge of the kitchen’s entry.

“Stupid dog, you made me look bad!” He quoted dramatically as the cartoon’s introduction picked back up, sticking out his tongue and shaking his head. “Ooga-booga-booga!”

The dog on the screen yelled in terror.

The dog sitting in front of him just blinked, large dark eyes focused solely on his face and not the bowl of food.

Bruce’s shoulders slumped under the weight of the completely open, trusting stare, and he quickly knelt down, sliding the bowl of food to the dog’s feet.

“I’m just kidding, you’re not a stupid dog,” he assured, digging his fingers into the warm fur as the dog bent down to the bowl. “You’re the best dog ever. You win, like … Champion of All Borrowed Canine Companions! Eustace shouldn’t say those things, huh? It’s not nice to Courage.”

The dog chuffed, lifting up from the food, immediately interested, and Bruce chuckled.

“Yes, Courage – you’re named after a tiny purple cartoon dog, because your dads are actually secret dorks.” He patted Courage firmly on the head, grinning as the large eyes slipped closed in pleasure. “Don’t tell them I told you that though, okay? Can you do that?” Courage chuffed again. “Good boy. I don’t think they’d appreciate me bad-talking them to their kid. They might never let me babysit you again.”

His hand froze as Courage dipped back into his lunch, eyes reflexively seeking the timer at the bottom left of the screen.

 

169:14:14

169:14:13

169:14:12

169:14:11

 

“… They’ll be back soon, buddy,” he promised quietly, scratching Courage lightly on his neck as the dog licked the bottom of the bowl. He glanced at the tv again, noting the golden tablet the characters were holding, and brought an exaggerated smile to his face. “Look! It’s the slab episode! It’s creepy, yeah? Wanna watch?”

Courage whined, tail wagging as he lifted his head once more. The bowl was empty, the food gone, and Bruce kept his smile as he wobbled back to his feet.

“C’mon,” he urged, patting his leg. “Let’s go watch the other Courage be scared out of his mind and save the day, huh? We’ll go get you some more food tomorrow.”

The day they had left, Steve and Bucky had both warned him against letting Courage onto the couch.

They cuddled there now, the pitbull’s head in his lap as animated plagues chased down fictional characters.

 

169:13:27

169:13:26

169:13:25

169:13:24

 

* * *

 

 

The crack of a gunshot jerked Bruce from his sleep.

Courage whined over the sound of immediate, frantic screaming, squirming into the sheets to get closer to his side.

The screaming was muffled, distant but close … still in the apartment building, probably the bottom floor. He waited, breath caught.

But there were no other shots.

The screaming spaced out, accompanied by lower, even quieter sobbing. Bruce squeezed his eyes shut, twisting until his face was buried into Courage’s fur.

“It’s alright,” he whispered to the dog, rubbing at laid-back ears. He kept his eyes closed. “It’s alright. It’s alright.”

 

* * *

 

 

Bruce didn’t have much in his apartment – hadn’t even before the government had mandated the timers – but he locked the door every time he left, anyway. It was probably moot by now; with the numbers getting so low, most people had better things to be doing than looting stores and robbing houses. But …

He turned the key, listening to the satisfying punch of the deadbolt cutting off his home from the rest of the world. He didn’t have much, no, but what he did have was his for the next one-hundred and fifty-four hours and whatever handful of seconds, and he wasn’t much in the mood to lay it out and give it up.

“Morning, Bruce,” a tired voice called from the stairwell. Courage pulled lightly at his leash, soft whines coming from his throat as Bruce turned toward the source.

“Hey, Clint.”

Though Clint was younger than him, right now he looked at least a decade older, every line of his face accentuated by the heavy wear of exhaustion that seemed neverending anymore. He had his cane today, his fingers tight and white-knuckled around the purple curve of it, leaning on it heavily enough that it was a wonder he wasn’t falling over. But he was smiling, because he was still Clint. “Suppose you heard what happened last night.”

Bruce swallowed, the echo of the gunshot still a ringing whistle in his ears, and stepped forward, Courage eagerly leading the way. “Yeah, I … yeah. Um, downstairs?”

“Yep. Magda Maximoff – hey, boy.” Clint’s smile stayed in place as he bent slightly to run Courage’s head, but this close, Bruce could see the tightness to it, the way it didn’t even slightly reach his eyes. Bruce’s stomach plummeted at the news. “God only knows how she managed to get her hands on a gun.”

“Her kids?” Bruce didn’t know (hadn’t, _hadn’t_ known) Mrs. Maximoff very well, but Wanda and Pietro – particularly Pietro – had been tearing around the halls of the apartment building almost daily for the past five years, and … _Christ_ , they were just kids, no older than fourteen.

“She only took herself out. Can’t decide if that was a mother’s mercy or not.” The other man kept his eyes on the pitbull, who was nudging at his good knee for more affection. “The twins are asleep in my spare room – Wade’s getting the, the body, you know? Getting it out of the apartment, but … just a week left, I’ll probably keep them with me. They’re cuddled up with Lucky right now, so dogs aren’t a problem. And it’s not like I don’t have the space anymore.”

President Ellis himself had sat at his desk in the Oval Office and, in a live broadcast that had cut across _every_ station, had calmly explained what was going to happen, in detail, with blunt, inescapable fact. But it hadn’t been until the timers had shown up on the TVs and computers that the frozen dread had knotted around Bruce’s lungs – pulling tighter with each hour gone, going thicker with each delivered bad blow. He inhaled hard, now, and fought for the right of that breath. “This is a mess.”

“A fucking mess,” Clint agreed, shaking his head a little before straightening back up, smile a little more grim than before. “Sometimes I think I’m dreaming, passed out drunk at the bar and you guys are drawing dicks on my face while I drool.”

“I never actually drew on you. That was all Bucky,” Bruce protested, briefly caught up in the memories, and then flinched. Because Natasha had been right there, too, dictating where Bucky (who had gotten the marker from an unprotesting Steve) should draw his creations.

Clint shifted, sign enough that he was thinking the same, but he didn’t follow on it, instead plucking at Courage’s leash. “Heading off to Joe’s?”

“I probably feed him more than I should,” Bruce acknowledged, shoulders slumping. Dreaming, huh? If only. If fucking only. “Canned beef chunks aren’t the best for him, I know, but I figure it can’t hurt with … anyway, at least Joe’s aren’t processed.”

“Not judging!” Clint chuckled a little, and it was such an achingly nostalgic sound that Bruce could physically feel the pain of it. “I feed Lucky oven-baked pizzas, so I’m not exactly a saint. Our boy can have beef chunks from a can if he wants ‘em.” He grinned down at the tail-wagging Courage, and then dug into his jacket pocket. “Here. It’s raining again today. Why don’t you guys take the Jeep? Wade’s got the garage unlocked right now, so you can get it with no problems.”

Bruce bulked on principle – the Jeep was Natasha’s, and the only time they’d used it in the past two months was to run Jessica up to the hospital when they’d called about Luke. “It’s cool, man, I can walk-.”

 _“Bruce.”_ Clint’s smile disappeared from his face, eyes suddenly hard and filled with a divergent sorrow that Bruce saw in the mirror every time he looked. “I have spent my morning coaxing two traumatized, numb teenagers out of the room that held their mother’s dead body – consoling said teenagers enough to just get them to sleep so that I could have someone _remove_ their mother’s dead body from the building – and trying to somehow reconcile that dead body to the woman I saw alive not even twenty-four hours ago. I haven’t spoken to Natasha in two months, and I just took two kids into our home without getting her opinion on it. I’m not having a great day, and I just want to make sure that, out of my four best friends, _at least one of them is going to get back okay._ So _take the fucking Jeep_ , alright?”

Bruce opened his hand to the heavy metal of the keys.

 

* * *

 

 

“Morning, Doctor B,” Wade greeted as Courage lead Bruce into the garage. “Going out?”

Bruce watched as the man popped the clip from the gun in his hands, tapping it until two more bullets spilled out into his waiting palm.

There had been three bullets in the gun.

Bruce clenched his jaw, opening the door to the Jeep, letting Courage jump inside first.

“Dog food,” he mumbled, looking away. Wade whistled understandingly, the bullets clicking around in his hand.

“Have fun.”

 

* * *

 

 

When people visualized the end of the world, the imagery was different depending on the cause.

Usually, heavy rain and grey skies of thick, unimpressed clouds was the sort of picture reserved for man-born endings, war – symbolism of the despair and hopelessness and acceptance people lived under for a fight they couldn’t win. The thick mud of trenches, or the puddled streets of a city that was unaware of an approaching bomb – nature sucking away life before violence would have a chance to, so that all war could steal from the people were their physical bodies.

Erratic weather – nights that never came – earthquakes, tsunamis, freak blizzards that never ended – barren land – shriveled people … those were the images people imagined when it came to natural causes riding the universe of Earth, or Earth riding the universe of the human race. Things got fucked up, became unstable, the world pulling apart from every direction.

In the end, however, no one had actually witnessed the end of the world. Obviously. So no one knew.

The black sticks of the windshield wipers swiped back and forth furiously over the glass, leaving tiny contradicting rivers in their wake even as they removed droplets of rain that just kept coming back in endless, angry waves. Both hands firmly clutching the steering wheel, Bruce kept a steady pressure on the gas pedal as he maneuvered through the empty streets, careful to neither hydroplane in the puddles nor squeal the tires too loudly. It was only a week, and most people were inside their homes, quiet and accepting, but approaching, inescapable death could do funny things to a person. And he wasn’t going to lose _Natasha’s Jeep_ to a carjacker who thought four wheel and an engine would save them.

From the backseat, Courage made a low, interested whoofing sound, accompanied by the telling rustling of plastic bags.

“I’ll make you _two_ cans when we get home if you _don’t_ break open one of those now,” Bruce compromised dryly, squinting against the rain to determine that that was, indeed, a stop sign ahead of him. “And don’t eat my steaks. It was very nice of Joe to give me those, and I want to appreciate them.” Seven steaks, actually, pulled from the back freezer and wrapped in disguising brown paper – and every can of beef chunks the store had had – and Joe had only taken the usual ten dollars as payment.

Courage whoofed again, softer.

“Exactly.”

Carefully, he applied the brakes, stopping more out of lawfully ingrained habit than actual need. With the gas pumps having all gone empty by the end of the first month, most people had used up their reserves in the initial panic, and while he was sure that there were still some cars running in the inner cities – the rich and privileged who didn’t have to go very far very often – there were rarely any around here. Bucky would probably love it here now, with how quiet it had gotten, with no swarms of people to surround and suffocate him and make him anxious. God, but Bruce hoped he was okay out there; that they were _all_ okay out there. Or that – he was such a _fuckingpieceofshitBanner_ for even thinking it – if they weren’t, the timers would hit zero before he found out. Days spent in long-distance loneliness, sharing oxygen but not touch, was one thing; days spent in amputated loneliness was something else entirely. He’d done it once, being alone – he knew he wouldn’t be able to do it so neatly, if at all, again.

A long, distressed whine sliced thinly out from the back, and Bruce blinked rapidly, pulled back into the rain and the Jeep and the empty streets surrounding him. He was still at the stop sign.

“Sorry, sorry,” he muttered back to the dog, glancing in both directions. 4-Way Stops were lies. “I know, you’re hungry, I’m going-.”

Without warning, Courage pounced on the side window, nails dragging harshly over the glass as he began to bark frantically. Alarmed, Bruce jerked around in his seat.

“What, what?” The dog’s ears were perked up, tail wagging furiously as his jaw jumped with each bark. Not frightened or territorial – intrigued, _welcoming_. Curious, Bruce lifted his head, scanning the sidewalks for whatever had caught Courage’s attention.

The person was sitting against the wall of a boarded-up bakery, curled so tightly into their body that Bruce didn’t even see them until his second pass, the rain-soaked grey of their hoodie blending in almost completely with the wall of the building.

He felt his eyebrows raise in the surprise that jolted through his chest.

The approaching end – knowing about it – sucked. And a lot of people had reacted the way that had been expected – in selfish, sometimes violent rage born from denial and fear. There had been a lot of looting, a lot rioting, a lot of small bombings and targetless shootings before the government had put forward a plea to hand over all firearms and other weapons capable of mass destruction. It had been horrific, and soul-sucking, and if that had been all that had happened, the national suicide rate would have probably been much higher. But where there had been so many so many people seething with vicious hysteria, there had been even more people who had stepped up, a goodness seeping out of them as if it had been waiting for the arrival of the timers to come out. People had opened their doors to the strangers who had had nowhere else to go for the final months, offering shelter and good and company, judgment set aside simply out of genuine kindness. It had been the first time Bruce could remember actually being moved by the actions of mankind, and it hadn’t taken long for the streets to be clear of the homeless and the lost.

So the sight of a person sitting in the rain, reminiscent of before, was jarring.

 _‘Carjacker,’_ paranoia spoke up instantly. _‘Bait. Trick. Insane. Suicidal. Dangerous.’_

 _‘This is Natasha’s Jeep,’_ Bruce reinforced as Courage’s barking lowered back down to whining. But he couldn’t pull his gaze from the figure on the sidewalk, who hunched in even further with an obvious shiver that made their shoulders shake.

“Damn it,” Bruce muttered, shifting the gear to park as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “This is such a bad – _stay_ ,” he warned firmly as Courage’s head popped up over his shoulder, happy panting puffing in his face. He popped the door open, pulling up his own hood. “Stay. I’ll … I’ll be right back.”

The rain was freezing as it slapped his skin (at least it wasn’t the season for snow), but he walked around the car slowly, cautious. He was just going to see if they were alright, if they’d maybe been kicked out or lost their own car to a thief. He didn’t want to startle them into either running _or_ attacking him, he just wanted to be sure … maybe they didn’t have anyone-

“Excuse me?” He called out lowly as his feet hit the sidewalk, his heart thudding from paranoia’s unhelpfully building adrenaline. The figure didn’t really move, not even a twitch in surprise at his words. Bruce paused for a second, frowning in doubt (he should just get back in the car), before he moved forward again. “Are you alright? Do you need-.”

“I’m not homeless,” a voice – male and not as deep as Bruce’s – cut him off, somewhere between a grumble and a sigh. “I’m fine. You can go back to whatever it was you were doing with your last week of living.”

That brought Bruce up short. Spending most of his time inside of his building, surrounded by people who were either reclusive like Mrs. Maximoff or sad like Clint, he hadn’t heard anyone talk about it so bluntly. He stared at the huddled, still visually shivering man.

“…You realize it’s raining, right?” He couldn’t help but ask.

“Is it?” The man returned easily. “I hadn’t noticed. I thought I was just getting cold and wet through magic. Or reverse perspiration. Rain makes a lot more sense, though. Thank you for letting me know. I appreciate it. You can go now. You only have so many hours until we all die, you shouldn’t be wasting them talking to me about the weather.” The man’s hooded head tilted as if in thought. “I’d tell you exactly how many hours it is, but my phone died sometime yesterday between one-sixty-nine-eighteen and one-sixty-eight-fifty, so I can’t look it up. I downloaded the app – well, no, a buddy of mine downloaded the app, thought it would do me some good to know _exactly_ how long I had left so I could do all the shit I wanted to do and-.”

The man’s rambling cut off with a burst of sudden, violent coughing that _looked_ as painful as it sounded, his shoulders bouncing with each punch of his lungs. Instinctively, Bruce moved closer, kneeling on the wet pavement before he consciously thought to do so, reaching out a hand to gently touch the man’s arm.

“That doesn’t sound great,” he observed softly as the hot noises died down. The hoodie the man was wearing was sodden beneath his fingers, squishy as if the fabric didn’t even know what it was like to be dry – he’d bet the man’s jeans and shoes (and his socks, fuck) were in much the same state. “You’ve been out in this for a few days.” It wasn’t a question.

“Told you – not homeless,” the man gasped out, shifting a little as he inhaled, like it hurt. “I have a place. I’m just … not in it.” A beat. “‘Sides, rain is cool. Awesome. Helps me think.”

“Helps you get pneumonia, is what it does.” Bruce tossed a glance over his shoulder toward the Jeep and Courage’s waiting face. God … was he really … Steve would be so proud – “Come back with me to my place.”

Abruptly, the stranger’s body sharply uncurled with a huff of surprise, back hitting the wall of the building with a sound that was muted by the breaths of the wind. His arm didn’t move away from Bruce’s touch, but his chin did lift up, finally allowing a view of his face and the intense, searching gaze of the brown eyes framed in tired bruises.

“Never had someone try to pick me up using concern for my health as a line before,” the man acknowledged slowly, blinking rapidly against the assault of the rain. His lips quirked in what he probably had intended to be a smirk, but came out as more of a half-hearted effort, and Bruce snorted.

“And you still haven’t,” he assured. “I am actually genuinely concerned. You need to warm up, get into something that isn’t wet, stay dry for awhile. Friend of mine had pneumonia last winter – he probably still has some antibiotics left in his apartment that it wouldn’t hurt you to take.” He frowned again, taking in how pale the man’s face was, the way his no longer hunched shoulders continued to noticeably shake. “Couple of meals, too.”

“See, you say you’re not picking me up, but that was definitely an invitation to dinner.” The man managed a short waggle of his eyebrows that stirred at the hibernating humor inside of Bruce’s chest – he raised his own eyebrows in response.

“I make a good breakfast, too,” he responded dryly, and despite the rain the man’s eyes widened comically in interested amusement as Bruce allowed himself to offer a smile. “Really, though. My place is fifteen minutes from here – you can borrow some clothes, eat something, charge your phone up. I’ve got hot water for seven consecutive minutes every twelve hours,” he added as he felt another shiver through the material of the hoodie.

The man bit briefly at his chapped bottom lip, amusement draining from his eyes as they refilled with hesitation. He shifted his arm, just a little, but enough that Bruce took the cue to move his hand. “You know, I could be a serial killer.”

Bruce shrugged, even as paranoia screamed its complete and utter agreement. “So could I.” He braced his hands on his knees and slowly got back to his feet, unintentionally offering the other a measure of protection from the weather as he stood in front of him.

“…I’m trying to come up with a good reason to say no,” the man confessed with a sigh, moving so that both of his palms splayed on the ground, leaning away from the wall to push himself up. “But honestly, I’ve got nothing that really works with the circumstances. I’m wet. It’s hard to think. Does the dog in the car bite? Probably not, but if I could think right now, I’d think that that would be an important question to a-.”

Another round of coughing caught them both off-guard, and then man tripped over his feet before he was fully standing. Bruce, catching the boney shoulders as his fingers dug into the soggy hoodie, steadying him as he let out a whimpered _“fuck”_ as he struggled to catch his breath again.

“Give yourself a minute,” he instructed soothingly, shaking a little himself. It had been a long time, longer than just two months, since he had touched someone he didn’t know. “You’re fine, get your breath, it’s fine. And the worst thing Courage is going to do is lick you. Every chance he gets.”

“…what about courage?” The man was bracing against the hold of Bruce’s hands a bit too heavily, obviously needing the support as his body heaved with too-quick breaths that he was trying to control.

Bruce kept it there. “That’s him. The dog. Courage.” As if he could hear his name, Courage began to bark, and muffled though it was by the thick glass of the Jeep windows, it was easily heard over the rain.

“…Oh.” The man stepped back, just slightly, looking from the car to Bruce and back to the car. “…Tony. I mean, sorry, my name. I’m Tony.”

Years ago, two people had slid into his usual back booth at Wilson’s – regulars he’d recognized from the many other nights he’d spent there. They’d introduced themselves as Steve and Natasha, and when he’d hesitantly exchanged his own name, Natasha had looked him square in the eye and had informed him that, formally introduced, they were no longer strangers. Steve had grinned in sympathy the entire time.

“I’m Bruce,” he returned now, throat ironically dry in the downpour of rain. He didn’t remove his support from Tony’s body. “Let’s get you dry, okay?”

“…Okay.”

 

* * *

 

 

Tony didn’t tap the radio on for music or twist the knob for a timer.

Tony didn’t recline his seat or put his feet up on the dash of Natasha’s Jeep.

Tony didn’t snap or grumble at Courage when the pitbull nosed his head under Tony’s arm and stayed there.

What Tony did do was secure his seatbelt before Bruce had even gotten into the Jeep.

What Tony did do was fall asleep before they’d even made it past the block, in the middle of an apology for getting the seat wet, as if his inconvenience was a large matter even as the timers continued to count down.

Bruce drove the rest of the way to apartment building with only Courage’s panting and Tony’s slightly-rattling breaths to break the silence two months had been slowly constructing around his head.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> An extremely belated [Science Bros](http://sciencebrosweek.tumblr.com/) Secret Santa gift for [CharityLambkin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/CharityLambkin) \- I sincerely hope that you like it :)


End file.
